outboard xovers

[henrylr]

Hi all,

New member here. I’ve built two sets of outboard crossovers, one for Sound Dynamics 300Ti and a second for B&W P6, and the improvements were great. I’m now designing a set for B&W N803. I from the school of “simple is better” so I plan to use a reduced number of components, compared to the B&W site pdf file, primarily for the FST mid range driver. Has anyone built xovers for these speakers or have any recommendations or thoughts?

[richidoo]

Hi Henry,

All speaker tweakers are welcome here!!  

I recommend using large gage air core inductors, especially on woofer LP filters, but even on tweeters too. North Creek is a good source for very large gage, even 8ga! I have 10ga coils on my 6" woofers, awesome clarity and dynamics!

I just saw North Creek's B&W XO upgrade kits. Check out the huge coils!
http://www.northcreekmusic.com/B-W_Crossovers/b-w_crossovers.html

Too much simplicity is just as bad as not enough. The OEM engineers have already tried to simplify to the max. They choose less expensive drivers knowing they can cure warts harmlessly in the XO. If you take out their cures you will still have the warts. But I understand that the attraction of better transient response (more detail) from simpler XO is more musically engaging than flat FR. Some people can tolerate FR aberrations in exchange for more "life" while others want flat FR above all for "accurate tone."  The best speakers can do both, with quality drivers, simple XOs, large boxes, large coils, and high prices.

Welcome to AudioNervosa!
Rich

[henrylr]

Thanks for the reply. I think the b&w n803 have good drivers but use cheap xover components such as electrolytic caps, very thin wire inductors, some with iron cores, and poor spacing and positioning. The wire, connectors and binding posts, could also benefit from improvement. I've seen the xovers and parts lists on their web site and in my own speakers.

The nautilus diamond series seems to have addressed most of the issues.  They have simplified the xovers and reduced the number of caps and resistors. I would appreciate any thoughts on this topic.

Thans,
henrylr

[tmazz]

Welcome aboard Henry! 

[rollo]

   The best B&W outboard crossover I ever heard was designed by Larry Smith. Used Goertz air core inductors. the traces were Goertz silver flat wire. Caps were from southern Electric polystyrene.
   As long as one can tame that beaming tweeter you got it in spades. Have fun and again welcome aboard.


charles